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4. The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Leave it to Meryl Streep to buck the trend and get an Oscar nomination for a comedy. It is hard to believe that there was a time when Anne Hathaway was more popular than Emily Blunt, but it is perhaps this movie that marked the end of that time.

The movie is lower on the list because of the somewhat sloppy second act, when they try to reconcile the devilish Miranda Priestly with some humanity in her relationship with Andie (Hathaway's character), but some of the outrageously zingy one-liners, the clever exaggerations, are timeless in their own right. Who can forget, of course, Miranda brushing away a tornado as “just a little sprinkle,” demanding the unpublished version of the ultra-secretive new Harry Potter book, cutting someone down to size about the “bargain-bin” clothing they are wearing, or explicitly telling her assistant she looks fat and dumpy in her clothes.

When it comes to bro-medies, it's dudes being silly or getting high or doing stupid things. When it comes to girls, it's girls being mean to each other. On the list of those mean ones, no one is soon to top Meryl (sorry Melissa), who gave us a timeless, unforgettable villain qua heroine.

3. Juno (2007)

I struggled with the question of whether to include Diablo Cody's Oscar-winning dramedy about a young girl deciding between keeping a baby she did not want and putting it up for adoption, but the movie does deserve the spot. Caper comedies, if you will, (think Sideways or Little Miss Sunshine), were making a renaissance amongst movie illuminati - they were respected and sought after by critics and fans alike. Juno came alone at that time and gave you a decidedly female-driven piece. Sure, those others had feminine affectations but the leads were always men. Here, by contrast, the lead was the eponymous character, in Ellen Page's breakout, Oscar-nominated turn, with a decidedly strong female push.

No surprise, of course, given the source of the material - the wildly inventive, somewhat autobiographical, and deeply moving script by Cody, the exotic dancer turned Oscar-winner. What works well in Juno is the mixture of relative young and unknown actors (Page, Michael Cera), mixed in with the well-known, from Jennifer Garner to Allison Janney, and even J.K. Simmons. Slapstick is right up the alley of all these stars, but the movie has enough of a heart to be almost cheatingly on this list.

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